Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[Flash]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2962

[Sage]

BIOS virii are as old as flash BIOS chips. In the early days, I continued to use clocked 286 s in preference to 3/486 s because most had non-volatile BIOSes (no battery backing). There are plenty of ('doze) utilities for interrogating the BIOS on the InterWeb - nothing new there. I've been using some of them to force settings not provided in the truncated access provided by the suppliers via the DEL key. Ten years ago, every kiddie knew how to clock their cr*p (esp Phoenix) BIOS on their proprietary boxes. The bigggggggest problem remains education, education, education. We must stop Americans, in particular, buying proprietary boxes - it degrades knowledge acquisition about the tools they use. It's deliberate, it's leverage - they know what criminals like eg bankers and M$ do to ruin their nation but education has been so bad over there that they persist with blind stupidity and indolence for the sake of lifting a little screwdriver. Building PC s should be taught in schools alongside the evils of capitalism.

[Patriot]

Hmmm ...

I've yet to encounter a BIOS infected virus. Corrupted ones due to virus attack, yes many times a long time ago. The ones that gets corrupted I've seen nowadays are due to user's own doing (with the help of manufacturer's auto-update) or due to a malfunction.

There's many ways to look at the bios. Flashing bios updates tools and setting modifications tools are aplenty. Patching tools are hard to come by but still available if you really want them. I normally don't "patch" them unless I need something specific.

I dare say that I'm the least worried about bios infected virus. Most of the nt based systems under my watch don't even use antivirus ... Downtime ? None was due to viruses ...

Rgds

[nooby]